Agreed. Sasha fumbled on every jump pass save the 2axle. She left out her 3 jump combo and got slammed with a level 1 on the footwork. She even had a stumble on her spiral sequence. Yes, WAY below standard for Sasha.

Soogar, I was too nervous to notice the program as a whole but I was never happy about her choice of Moonlight Sonata for the FP. ITA with you on that - that music has become trite with overexposure and is too much of a downer. Sasha always does better with music that has more momentum and sparkle. But she really fought to stay upright even on wonky jumps. I give her huge points for the effort but she just ran out of prep time.

Mirai should have won. Within ten minutes it was obvious that the judging of this event was going to be controversial. Too bad - the judges looked like they were gonna make it through Nats with almost unanimous kudos!

I agree but feel the judging was more fair and less controversial than last year! At least Rachael landed 7 triples instead of 3 like Alissa last year. Also, the fact that they handed out FS scores in the 80s to Alissa and Caroline is saying something, if they had wanted to, the FS scores for both of them could have been around 100. If Christina hadn't made those few mistakes she would have beaten Sasha in the FS!

No, it was worse than that. But I give her props just for trying. The easy way out would have been to WD from the event citing lack of preparation considering all that's happened. But she surprised a lot of people by showing up.

Congrats to the medalists I'm a bit bummed for Ashley but Rachel and Mirai skated all out in both segments of the competition- that's what it came down to and they both earned their spots 100%...now, they are both long shots for medals in Vancouver but if they do their absolute best, who knows what could happen...and if they are both also going to Worlds, they could possibly re-gain 3 spots for USA in 2011 if the top contenders skip it as usual...

Congratulations to Rachael and Mirai. What an exciting Olympic team they make!

That said, I thought Mirai deserved much bigger lead in PCS (in SP too). I love how Rachael sells her performances with her passion (not to mention gutsy jumps wow), Mirai had superior speed (the difference is so noticeable compared to other skaters), lines, more refined moves, and more attention/ choreo to/with the music, IMO!